Miami—April 5, 2012—Business advisory and operations improvement consulting firm Answerthink (of The Hackett Group Inc.) has delivered a successful go-live implementation of EzLifeSciences, an SAP partner solution for the life sciences industry, at Exact Sciences Corp.
Molecular diagnostics company Exact Sciences, Madison, Wis., wanted to simplify its business processes through the use of an integrated solution that would provide functionality including the automation of routine or repetitive tasks; and the reduction of duplicate, manual and paper-based processes. In addition, it wanted to standardize its data and processes while aligning functional activities with overall corporate strategic goals. Lastly, Exact Sciences wanted timely consolidation of financials with the ability to use a single database across the enterprise for business analytics and performance measurements.
To meet these requirements, Answerthink implemented its EzLifeSciences SAP solution which now provides base functionality in the following areas:
- Finance: general ledger, account payables and product costing
- Materials Management: purchasing (including PR release strategy), approved vendors through source lists and inventory management
- Production Planning: from forecasting material requirement planning to manufacturing
- Quality Management: product release
- Sales & Distribution: limited sales order management (FOC) and returns processing
“As a small company with very limited ERP experience and limited business processes, implementation of an enterprise application can be seen as challenging,” said Jay Schiestle, Senior Director of Operations, Exact Sciences Corp. “Our Answerthink partners had not only the SAP solution expertise but also deep business experience that benefited us tremendously during implementation. Answerthink’s flexibility and willingness to tailor its approach to our needs was critical in helping us achieve a very challenging implementation timeline.”
The EzLifeSciences offering from Answerthink is based on best practices from SAP and customized for growing companies in pharmaceutical manufacturing industries. It is part of Answerthink’s family of preconfigured solutions that are designed specifically to help life sciences companies achieve goals such as streamlined product development, manufacture reporting automation and regulatory compliance, and supporting critical business processes.
“The integrated nature of the solution has brought cross-functional areas closer together to make faster decisions,” said Kyle Stacey, Controller, Exact Sciences Corp. “Having implemented the SAP Business All-In-One solution puts us in a great position to be able to achieve our short-term and long-term goals. We could not have completed the implementation without the strong team that Answerthink provided.”
Upon implementation of the use of the SAP solution, Exact Sciences was processing business activities on the first day, according to John McGrath, Principal of the SAP Solutions Group, Answerthink.
“The closed-loop solution with complete tracking of every individual item throughout the process is exactly what was required at Exact Sciences,” McGrath added. “Our EzLifeSciences solution is proving superior value to this growing, innovative customer. Many small and mid-size companies are coming to the conclusion that they can take on world-class software from SAP if a preconfigured, industry-based approach is used,” he concluded.
